There Will Be Blood: DVD Review (2008)

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8159801361173958048.post-74436952332470154282008-04-05T00:57:00.004-04:002008-12-12T21:45:17.368-05:00There Will Be Blood: DVD Review (2008)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HJrGkCIwYOg/R_cHGg137gI/AAAAAAAACcU/oGhq0wsLjLg/s1600-h/There+Will+Be+Blood+DVD+Review.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HJrGkCIwYOg/R_cHGg137gI/AAAAAAAACcU/oGhq0wsLjLg/s400/There+Will+Be+Blood+DVD+Review.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5185621304416923138" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">“There Will Be Blood”</span><br /></div><br />The best movie of Daniel Day-Lewis' career turns out to be in the best movie of Paul Thomas Anderson's career, a nice slice of symmetry that gets even better when you consider that so far, the actor and director have achieved their personal peaks in one of 2007's best films.<br /><br />Thick with mustache and armed with enough greed and hate to ruin a country, nevermind a town, Day-Lewis’ Daniel Plainview comes to the oil-rich town of Little Boston with his son H.W. (Dillon Freasier) at his side.<br /><br />He’s there to beat Standard Oil at their own game and buy up as much land as he can.<br /><br />Meanwhile, he finds in Little Boston an unexpected adversary in Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a Bible-thumping evangelist who sees in the good book what Plainview sees in oil--absolute power over the people.<br /><br />Together, these two are pitted against each other in ways that make for stirring, dangerous entertainment, with each actor railing off the other and giving terrific performances in the process.<br /><br />This is especially true for Day-Lewis, whose unshakable performance won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. His Plainview can be devastatingly cruel and kind in one brushstroke. We watch him with a sense of trepidation and fascination.<br /><br />In this way, he literally is the face of the emerging West. In all the dirt and suffering that surround Plainview, a groundswell of promise nevertheless bubbles beneath his feet. Blood will be spilled to realize that promise--an element that gives the film its sharp connection to the present--but in this do-or-die culture of creating a secure new culture, the pull of that promise is enough to tip those who seek it into madness.<br /><br />Just as it is now.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.weekinrewind.com/2008/01/there-will-be-blood-movie-review-2008.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Read the full, unedited review here.</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rated R. Grade: A<br /><br />View the video review below:<br /></span><br /><script src="http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.js?mediaId:770952;affiliateId:163360;backColor:#000000;frontColor:#FFFFFF;gradColor:#000000;width:400;height:312;shareUrl:revver;" type="text/javascript"></script><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8159801361173958048-7443695233247015428?l=www.weekinrewind.com'/></div>Adminnoreply@blogger.com2